Seems that rumor sites are saying that this year’s WWDC will happen June 10th-15th. June used to be the standard month – the Great Intel Switch was announced June 6th (my birthday!), just 18 months ago. Last year it was August, and the consensus is that the delay was to allow the first Leopard seed to be ready… and a good thing it was, too.

Now, the rumored dates are coincidentally still unbooked at the Moscone Center site. Apple is, so far, mum on the subject but insiders say that an official date might be announced in February. Currently, my feeling is that June 10-15 might be accurate, and if it is, very possibly Steve Jobs will officially announce the availability of Leopard and of the iPhone at the keynote. And that may well be the first time that the rumored new Leopard GUI is shown in public; unless my suspicions that the iPhone interface was a preview of one of Leopard’s UI modes are confirmed, of course.

Other rumors speak of a “special announcement” in the second half of February, and some say specifically that Leopard will be shown then, and that it should be out in late March. I’m under NDA about details of course, but I frankly don’t believe Leopard will be sufficiently stable in March, and so, if any special event happens, it will be used to introduce new Mac hardware. Any upgrades to iApps will of course use the cool new Leopard technologies and so won’t be available before the big L ships.

I really hope to make it again to this year’s WWDC; the last two were great. We have a Scandinavia/Baltic trip starting in late June so we might even join the two trips.